This study provides a framework for comparison and benchmarking of administrative expenditures of public and private social security programs. The paper presents the genesis of the inquiries into the subject, reviewing some of the most relevant literature on administrative expenditures and the costs of mandatory programs produced over the past two decades.
... انظر المزيد + The quantitative analysis builds on the extensive body of literature, but our framework evolved considerably from earlier studies. Our dataset includes over 100 observations and a broad set of explanatory variables. The authors developed and compared a number of standardized cost indices discussing their advantages and limitations. The author also discusses major cost components and their shares in total program costs. The analysis explains over 90 percent of variation in administrative expenditures. It confirms some of the hypotheses expressed in the earlier studies and presents new evidence of driving factors for costs. The author developed three different specifications for statistical analysis. The first set looks at the impact of design of a program on total costs. The second group of specifications assesses differences in costs of managing pension liabilities between the public and private mandatory pension schemes. Finally, on the basis of the third model the author generate benchmarks for staffing levels and for the total administrative expenditures. The author compares those to the actual indicators and develops standard performance ratios, providing insights into design variations and performance of the programs. The author concludes with a discussion of data limitations and implications of our findings.
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Pensions at a Glance in Latin America and the Caribbean provides for the first time an ample range of indicators for comparing pension system design of 26 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
... انظر المزيد + The indicators are comparable with those of OECD countries and selected G20 members, published by the OECD. The biggest pension policy challenge faced by most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) today is low coverage of formal pension systems, both in terms of the proportion of workers participating in pension schemes and the proportion of the elderly receiving some kind of pension income. Efforts to close the coverage gap, for example, through non-contributory pensions, are therefore at the heart of the pension policy debate in the region. However, these policies might pose significant fiscal challenges in the next decades as the population ages. Chapter 2 presents three main indicators describing the demographic conditions relevant for pension policy, namely fertility rates, life expectancy and old-age support ratios. This is followed by a systematic comparison, in Chapter 3, of system designs across countries using the standard OECD Pensions at a Glance typology and presenting several key indicators of adequacy, including gender-specific gross and net replacement rates and pension wealth at different income levels. Finally, Chapter 4 provides the profiles of each pension system in Latin America and the Caribbean in terms of their architecture, rules and parameters.
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This report briefly summarizes the results for the analysis of the design, financing and administrative processes for a national social security system covering all salaried workers in Timor-Leste, including analysis of the actuarial report (ACL Report) prepared for the Directorate General of Social Security by its consultant.
... انظر المزيد + The report is divided into seven sections: (i) Scope of Work; (ii) ACL Report Assumptions and Methods Comment; (iii) ACL Plan Design Comments; (iv) PROST Analysis: ACL Report Design, Assumptions and Methods; (v) PROST Analysis: ACL Report Design, Bank Assumptions and Methods; (vi) Social Security Pension Fund Establishment; and (vii) Conclusion. In the final analysis it was determined that the ACL report does not meet international standards for actuarial reports for national social insurance systems. Furthermore it misrepresents the long-term costs of the proposed Timor-Leste national social security system by using non-standard assumptions and methods and an unusually short analysis period. It is suggested that the government of Timor-Leste carefully consider all aspects of design and funding before adopting the new system, as the decisions made will have very significant macroeconomic, labor market, budget, and social policy implications for the country for decades to come.
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Developing and low-income countries around the world have been unable to provide old-age income security to all through contributory pensions. Neither reforms to pension systems nor general growth and development have helped countries to increase coverage much.
... انظر المزيد + In frustration, many countries are considering or have implemented non-contributory social pensions, aiming to reduce poverty and vulnerability among the elderly. It is therefore important to consider how such programs fit into social assistance programming. This note discusses the horizontal equity of programs that are solely for the elderly and the option of targeting such programs differently. It then sheds empirical light on the issue with simulations based on data from the Kyrgyz Republic, Niger, Panama and Yemen.
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A fundamental goal of any pension system is to ensure that members receive an adequate income when they retire. Although traditional defined benefit pension plans set out how pension income will be determined in advance and then strive to deliver this, the growing number of defined contribution plans accumulate a sum of assets which can then be turned into a pension income on retirement.
... انظر المزيد + However, the amount of this retirement income is not predefined This frequently leads to a focus by not only most pension providers, but also regulators and pension plan members themselves on the short-term accumulation of pension assets rather than the longer-term goal of securing an adequate retirement income. This paper discusses a possible solution to this challenge: the use of benchmarks to encourage pension funds to invest with the longer-term goal of delivering adequate retirement income in mind. Examples are provided of leading pension funds that already work with long-term, outcome-based benchmarks. The paper suggests a methodology for pension regulators to use in order to incentivize pension funds in their jurisdictions to adopt a similar approach.
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Today, the Kyrgyz pension system plays a major role in poverty alleviation of the elderly but this role is diminishing fast due to low coverage of working age population.
... انظر المزيد + The system currently provides pensions to more than 90 percent of the population over age 65 thus being a significant buffer against poverty. Over time, though, the poverty reduction effect of the pension system is expected to weaken substantially as the current low coverage rates among the working age population translate into much lower coverage rates of about only 60 percent for the future old age population. As a result, poverty rates among the old-age population will grow and government spending on social pensions will increase dramatically. The structure of this chapter is as follows. The next section provides an overview of the current pension system and the main issues facing it. Section three presents the results of the financial projections for the current system assuming a no-reform scenario and the implications of doing nothing on the finances of the Social Fund, the cost to the government and the expected benefits (baseline projections). Section four considers several broad reform options and their impact with respect to the financial sustainability and affordability of the system as well as adequacy of benefits. Section five outlines the issues remaining beyond the scope of this study which require further analysis. Annex one summarizes the main parameters of the current pension system and annexes two provides a brief description of the main assumptions used in the projections and the projection methodology. The diagnosis of the current system and the evaluation of the reform options presented in this chapter are based on the simulations produced with the World Bank Pension Reform Options Simulation Toolkit (PROST) model.
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The main goal of any pension system is to ensure that members receive an adequate pension income when they retire. Whilst traditional defined benefit (DB) pension plans set out what that pension income will be in advance and then strive to deliver it, the growing number of defined contribution (DC) plans accumulates a sum of assets which can then be turned into a pension income on retirement.
... انظر المزيد + However, the amount of this retirement income is not set in advance. In the absence of a proper regulatory framework, feature n DC plans leads to a focus by not only pension providers, but also regulators and pension plan members themselves on the short-term accumulation of pension assets rather than the longer-term goal of securing an adequate retirement income. The paper is organized as follows: chapter two discusses the origins of risks based supervision and discusses the role of capital in the alignment of incentives in financial institutions. Chapter three discusses the concept of risk based supervision for pension funds, and its limitations in the case of DC pension schemes. Chapter four discusses the effectiveness of RBS schemes in DC systems in emerging economies, and the last section provides some lessons learned.
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Defined contribution pension systems have faced criticism in the wake of the financial and economic crisis for not delivering adequate and sustainable pension incomes at retirement.
... انظر المزيد + Much of the problem has centered around the misalignment of pension fund management companies and the interests of pension fund members, with the focus on short-term volatility rather than delivering adequate pension income over the long term. Although pension fund supervisors in emerging economies have attempted to correct for these market failures, they have not focused sufficiently on the ultimate long-term pension income objective. The paper suggests that in order to have a meaningful impact on future pensions, the supervision of defined contribution pension systems needs to take a more proactive role in minimizing pension risk. This objective would require ensuring that investment risks are aligned with the probability of achieving a target pension at retirement age. The paper also suggests that a proper institutional design of the pension fund industry and intensive use of market surveillance are efficient tools for dealing with most of the operational risks of funded pension fund schemes in emerging economies.
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This note sets out options to develop private pensions in Albania. It has been requested by the authorities to help create a more diversified pension system that can deliver improved outcomes for Albania in decades to come.
... انظر المزيد + A diversified pension system mixes state and private pensions as well as other sources of retirement income. The analysis, diagnosis, and recommendations use an outcome-based assessment framework. This technical note looks at how the pension system performs relative to 5 key outcomes: efficiency, sustainability, coverage, adequacy, and security. These outcomes depend on the political and economic environment in which a pension system operates, and its overall design including regulatory framework, market structure and conduct, and supervisory approach.
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In February 2011, the government of Timor-Leste (GoTL) enacted a law creating a pension system for civil servants. However, the government now wants to repeal and replace this pension law as it deems it too broad in scope, coverage and cost, and it contains several non-standard design features.
... انظر المزيد + In its place, the GoTL wants to consider creating a reformed permanent civil service pension program covering all civil servants. Within a few years thereafter, the government also wants to implement a national social security system. This system will cover formal sector workers, and it is likely civil servants will also participate. Consequently, civil servants may get benefits from both the national social security system and the civil service pension system. Timor-Leste has many civil servants with long service both before and after independence. The reformed pension system for civil servants will give the government a method of honorably allowing its elderly civil servants to exit the work force. At this time, the primary method of caring for elderly civil servants is to continue salary payments. This is because there is no mandatory retirement age for civil servants and the government does not yet have effective procedures for compelling older workers to retire when their productivity level declines. Consequently, the government has informed us that the civil service pension is unlikely to pay benefits to any civil servants until such time as these two issues are resolved. The government estimates this will take five years (until 2018). Until that time, elderly civil servants will continue to receive their salary and will not receive a pension from the reformed civil service pension program.
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The pension and old age security systems that originated in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been effective in sharply reducing poverty rates among the elderly throughout Europe.
... انظر المزيد + However, in many countries of the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region, these systems now comprise the single largest expenditure item in the government budget. Current demographic trends in the region, however, suggest that further reforms will be needed. This report presents the historical evolution of pension systems in Europe, showing how policy makers were able to use the expanding population pyramid, with large younger cohorts and small older cohorts to expand the coverage and increase the generosity of pension systems. Levels of benefits were increased and the duration of retirement increased over time, making pension systems more expensive, with each generation receiving more generous benefits than the generation before. This report focuses on the impact of the break in this demographic evolution, whereby the prognosis for the future population structure is likely to resemble a column or even an inverting pyramid, with smaller cohorts of working age population expected to support larger cohorts of elderly retirees. Despite the demographic challenges, ECA countries do not have to roll back the progress they have made in reducing poverty among the elderly. Changes in pension policy will need to be accompanied by policies to increase labor market flexibility so as to encourage older workers to remain in the work force. Such policies include incentives for employers to provide lifelong learning and training specifically geared to older workers, and make workforce adaptations which allow older workers to retain a high level of productivity. Governments may also need to re-examine the efficiency of their revenue administration systems to help finance not just pensions, but all other societal needs. This report goes into each of these accompanying policies, but concludes that none of these by itself can address the impact of the demographic challenges that are underway. A combination of policies will be required to effectively face the challenges. The report concludes that the inverting population pyramid clearly presents challenges to the provision of old age security, but consistent policy choices to return the pension system to parameters similar to those in the 1970s can result in sustainable systems of old age security.
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The pension and old age security systems that originated in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been effective in sharply reducing poverty rates among the elderly throughout Europe.
... انظر المزيد + However, in many countries of the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region, these systems now comprise the single largest expenditure item in the government budget. Current demographic trends in the region, however, suggest that further reforms will be needed. This report presents the historical evolution of pension systems in Europe, showing how policy makers were able to use the expanding population pyramid, with large younger cohorts and small older cohorts to expand the coverage and increase the generosity of pension systems. Levels of benefits were increased and the duration of retirement increased over time, making pension systems more expensive, with each generation receiving more generous benefits than the generation before. This report focuses on the impact of the break in this demographic evolution, whereby the prognosis for the future population structure is likely to resemble a column or even an inverting pyramid, with smaller cohorts of working age population expected to support larger cohorts of elderly retirees. Despite the demographic challenges, ECA countries do not have to roll back the progress they have made in reducing poverty among the elderly. Changes in pension policy will need to be accompanied by policies to increase labor market flexibility so as to encourage older workers to remain in the work force. Such policies include incentives for employers to provide lifelong learning and training specifically geared to older workers, and make workforce adaptations which allow older workers to retain a high level of productivity. Governments may also need to re-examine the efficiency of their revenue administration systems to help finance not just pensions, but all other societal needs. This report goes into each of these accompanying policies, but concludes that none of these by itself can address the impact of the demographic challenges that are underway. A combination of policies will be required to effectively face the challenges. The report concludes that the inverting population pyramid clearly presents challenges to the provision of old age security, but consistent policy choices to return the pension system to parameters similar to those in the 1970s can result in sustainable systems of old age security.
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The global textile and apparel sector is critically important as an early phase in industrialization for many developing countries and as a provider of employment opportunities to thousands of low-income workers, many of them women.
... انظر المزيد + The goal of this book is to explore how the lifting of the Multi-fibre Arrangement/ Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (MFA/ATC) quotas has affected nine countries Bangladesh, Cambodia, Honduras, India, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam with the broader aim of better understanding the links between globalization and poverty in the developing world. Analyzing how employment, wage premiums, and the structure of the apparel industry have changed after the MFA/ATC can generate important lessons for policy makers for economic development and poverty reduction. This book uses in-depth country case studies as the broad methodological approach. In-depth country studies are important because countries are idiosyncratic: differences in regulatory context, history, location, trade relationships, and policies shape both the apparel sector and how the apparel sector changed after the end of the MFA. In-depth country studies place broader empirical work in context and strengthen the conclusions. The countries in this book were chosen because they represent the diversity of global apparel production, including differences across regions, income levels, trade relationships, and policies. The countries occupy different places in the global value chain that now characterizes apparel production. Not surprisingly, the countries studied in this book represent the diversity of post-MFA experiences. This book highlights four key findings: the first is that employment and export patterns after the MFA/ATC did not necessarily match predictions. This book shows that only about a third of the variation in cross-country changes in exports is explained by wage differences. While wage differences explain some of the production shifts, domestic policies targeting the apparel sector, ownership type, and functional upgrading of the industry also played an important role. Second, changes in exports are usually, but not always, good indicators of what happens to wages and employment. While rising apparel exports correlated with rising wages and employment in the large Asian countries, rising exports coincided with falling employment in Sri Lanka. Third, this book identifies the specific ways that changes in the global apparel market affected worker earnings, thus helping to explain impacts on poverty. Fourth, in terms of policies, the countries that had larger increases in apparel exports were those that promoted apparel sector upgrading; those that did not promote upgrading had smaller increases or even falling exports.
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The purpose of this study of Mobility Pensions within the Framework of the Eurasian Economic Union and the CIS was to assess the potential of integrated and contractionary factors of mobility practices in the context of pension processes of labor migration and economic integration with the interests of recipient countries' labor force (Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus) and donor countries (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia).
... انظر المزيد + In the context of integration processes in the post-labor era, migration is one of the key issues that require careful study and analysis. This is due to the magnitude of migration flows in the CIS and the ever-increasing performance in this area. The CIS region is a leader in the migration of the Eurasian continent. This situation causes a set of interrelated consequences affecting the socio-economic and political situation of donor countries labor resources and the recipient countries. The report consists of three chapters, introduction and conclusion. The first chapter is devoted to the analysis of the demographic situation in the CIS countries, assessing the efficiency of labor markets and analysis of migration flows. The second chapter of the report includes a description of and analytical evaluation of the world experience to create a common pension goal. In the third chapter, the authors offer a solution for the development of this destination of social policy in the countries that formed the Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) followed by an analysis of the positive and negative effects of introducing the general retirement practice.
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This policy note is part of the World Bank's Programmatic Public Expenditure Review (PER) work program for FY2012-2014. The PER consists of a series of fiscal policy notes, which aim at providing the Government of Tajikistan with recommendations to strengthen budgetary processes and analysis.
... انظر المزيد + This policy note, the second in the series, examines public expenditures on health in Tajikistan. After an introductory section, the note describes the institutional and administrative structure of the health sector. Section 3 presents health outcomes and health care utilization indicators. Section 4 describes health financing in Tajikistan and presents the main options to expand fiscal space for health. Section 5 reviews the health financing and organizational reforms implemented in Tajikistan. Section 6 provides the main conclusions: 1) despite progress, health sector outcomes are mixed in Tajikistan and utilization pattern of health services is characterized by significant inequalities; 2) public spending on health is relatively low and skewed towards hospitals rather than outpatient care; 3) the hospital sector is characterized by oversupply of beds, avoidable inpatient admissions, low occupancy rates, and excessive average length of stay; 4) an increase in public health expenditures since 2000 was largely driven by the expanding wage bill, while other expenditures had been compressed; 5) public health expenditures show a regressive incidence, with the distribution of inpatient care more pro-rich than outpatient care; 6) the large reliance on out-of-pocket produces a high incidence of catastrophic spending; 7) a number of health financing and organizational reforms have been initiated since 2000, but the scope and coverage is still limited; and 8) the overall prospect for increasing fiscal space for health in Tajikistan are positive, with rationalization of both the overall budget and the public health delivery system.
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It has been more than 20 years since Brazil's 1988 Constitution formally established the Unified Health System (Sistema Unico de Saude, SUS).
... انظر المزيد + Building on reforms that started in the 1980s, the SUS represented a significant break with the past, establishing health care as a fundamental right and duty of the state and initiating a process of fundamentally transforming Brazil's health system to achieve this goal. This report aims to answer two main questions. First is have the SUS reforms transformed the health system as envisaged 20 years ago? Second, have the reforms led to improvements with regard to access to services, financial protection, and health outcomes? In addressing these questions, the report revisits ground covered in previous assessments, but also brings to bear additional or more recent data and places Brazil's health system in an international context. The report shows that the health system reforms can be credited with significant achievements. The report points to some promising directions for health system reforms that will allow Brazil to continue building on the achievements made to date. Although it is possible to reach some broad conclusions, there are many gaps and caveats in the story. A secondary aim of the report is to consider how some of these gaps can be filled through improved monitoring of health system performance and future research. The introduction presents a short review of the history of the SUS, describes the core principles that underpinned the reform, and offers a brief description of the evaluation framework used in the report. Chapter two presents findings on the extent to which the SUS reforms have transformed the health system, focusing on delivery, financing, and governance. Chapter three asks whether the reforms have resulted in improved outcomes with regard to access to services, financial protection, quality, health outcomes, and efficiency. The concluding chapter presents the main findings of the study, discusses some policy directions for addressing the current shortcomings, and identifies areas for further research.
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